Rip-off ruling rocks Sky TV firm

Quoted Sky television channel operator TV Commerce was considering its future today after telecoms regulators found it guilty of ripping off its viewers, forcing it to close down its daytime station StarDate TV.

In another blow for the reputation of stocks listed on the lightly regulated secondary market Aim, TV Commerce shares collapsed more than 60% at one stage today, below its float price less than two years ago.

As part of a wide-ranging clampdown on the television industry ripping off viewers who are charged premium rates to call or text programmes, telephone regulator ICSTIS formally reprimanded TV Commerce and fined it £25,000.

The company, run and controlled by colourful entrepreneur and former hairdresser Vince Stanzione, was found guilty of deliberately keeping callers on the line longer than needed. Viewers of dating channel StarDate TV were encouraged to call in and charged £1.50 a minute.

The company today admitted the ramifications of the ICSTIS ruling are serious. 'Given the increased intervention of the regulator in this market, the directors are concerned for the future viability of the company's existing business model,' it warned investors.

'The board and its advisers are therefore currently reviewing the options available to the company, which may include the possibility of taking the company private and delisting its shares.'

TV Commerce, which also makes money out of callers to its Your Destiny-TV channel promising psychic readings as well as a phone service which last year charged parents £3 a time to get Father Christmas to phone their children, turned its first profit this summer.

Stanzione, 37, formed TV Commerce in 2004. He left the family hairdressing business in Luton to join NatWest where, as a teenage foreign exchange trader, he lost his savings in the 1987 crash. Since then he has been an insurance salesman, and claims to have made a fortune spread betting.